More dirt: cyclists on CO Route 3, a 17-mile stretch of dirt and gravel off of Ute Pass.

So I was washing off after today’s 96-mile ride from Leadville to Granby, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much dirt running down the drain. After two days of riding in the stuff, I feel like it’s embedded itself in everything. My bike is covered in it, I’m covered in it, everything I touch ends up dirty. I feel like Pigpen from “Peanuts,” walking around in my own ever-present cloud of dirt. And after today’s ride, I also got to dig a little gravel out of my gear. The 17-mile stretch of “hardpack dirt road” was actually more gravel and sand than dirt, and much like Tuesday’s dirt stretch near Independence Pass, people either love it or loathe it. I’m thinking there were more loathes than loves today; support vehicles were again carting cyclists and bikes off the course all day, some riders so angry they could barely contain themselves. I heard some interesting words. I imagine that some of the organizers are getting their own earful today, but I guess they’re probably used to that. Cyclists aren’t always an easy bunch to reason with.

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A tandem navigates the gravel on CO 3.

But it’s been a tough course for many folks; one of the support vehicle drivers said that more people were taken off the course Tuesday than anytime in Ride The Rockies history. I have no way of checking those facts, but it certainly seemed busy today as well. If a challenge is what you were looking for in Ride The Rockies, then you’ve gotten a good one. And Thursday’s climb up Trail Ridge Road should keep the challenges coming.

Me, I’m happy if I can still see the landscape around me. Before I moved out here from the East Coast nearly 10 years ago, I thought Colorado was Aspen, basically. Pretty little mountain towns covered in snow, pine trees everywhere and ski bums littering the resorts. I had no clue it was high desert, rolling farmlands, stunning red-rock formations AND mountains. And after doing Ride The Rockies for the past 7 years, I can say that I’ve covered more roads in Colorado by bike than by car. It’s a much better way to see the state, though it takes a little more effort.

But riding through dirt and gravel makes it a little difficult to appreciate the scenery — especially for someone like me, who’s famous for throwing myself off my bike simply by turning my head to say hello. I’m a little afraid to take my attention off the road when I’m on loose dirt; appreciating the landscape becomes a little deadly. But that’s what I’m here for, so if you see a woman crouched on the side of the road, taking pictures of dirt, that would probably be me. Say hello and give me a wide berth.

Dirty Deals and Shameless Plugs.So I wrote about how I demo’d a sweet pricey bike; then I demo’d a sweet pair of sunglasses. I’ve always been interested in how some of the bike and gear vendors fare from these deals — do many people actually buy items after they try them out for a day, or do they just use them with no intention of purchasing, just wanting a free ride? The vendors show up every day at each campground, sitting for hours in the sun, letting people snag their products for a one-day tryout. Hopefully, they’ll be inspired to buy, but it’s a tricky business. The man who let me demo the glasses, Greg Kottenstette from Bolle[3], says this year has been unusual in the amount of people just using gear for the sake of using them. And in some respects, I started out as one of those, after losing my glasses on McClure Pass.

Now a little aside: I lose EVERYTHING. I lose wallets, I lose cycling gear — I have even been known to lose a car. But that’s another story. My travel and cycling friend Sheila has to listen to me walk around the hotel rooms, saying, “Have you seen my ….(enter random item here)” Luckily for me, she generally has two of everything — except for glasses. So I was just going to buy a cheap pair at City Market and hope they held together. But Greg was there with his sweet glasses and I snagged them for two days. Unfortunately for me, I WAS hooked. And I’m not a gearhead, by any means. So in the end, I became the proud new owner of a pair of Bolle Bolt glasses with genuine Photochromatic VR3 lenses. I have no idea what many of those words mean, but they sound awesome. They are now the nicest things I own, and I am afraid I will now have to find a way to buy a bike, cycling kit, shoes and various stuff that matches their coolness. Which may involve knocking off a bank. Or two.

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